The present invention relates to the process of selecting a service provider and, more particularly, relates to programmatically (automatically) selecting a service provider based on assured (or attested to) quality of service attributes.
Consumers who have access to computer networks such as the Internet can select from a number of different service providers to meet their need for services. These service providers assert many different requirements, both functional and nonfunctional. A functional requirement describes how something is executed while a nonfunctional requirement describes the qualities around execution. Nonfunctional requirements may also be referred to as quality of service requirements.
Currently, there is no efficient way for a consumer to interrogate multiple different service providers over the Internet and be assured of the ability of the service providers to fulfill the functional requirements and nonfunctional requirements of a proposed request for services.